Svoboda Zholdak Theatre

ZHENYA ONEGIN BEING IN HELL

Vladimir Dudin, Newspaper St Petersburg Vedomosti

Issue № 217 of 09.11.2012

The Mikhailovsky Theatre presented the first opera season premiere - "Eugene Onegin" in the production of one of the most famous theatrical provocateurs - Ukrainian Andriy Zholdak, which debuted at the opera. Music director Michael Tatarnikov made.

No one doubted that the production Zholdak caused a stir - for he and Zholdak, student Anatoly Vasilyev, to make noise. More surprising is how Mikhailovsky Theatre, decent, all of a bourgeois striving for impeccable reputation, decided to invite the director-extremals staged opera classics. Perhaps the theater did not know what was going on. The more that four years ago here at the last moment on the eve of the premiere guide canceled "Eugene Onegin" in setting then 81-year-old director Mikhail Dotlibova, which was supposed to restore performance created by the laws of the Stanislavsky system. Then the public value most is how you can blame the setting is obsolete in at the last stage of its release, as if until the theater is not aware of what is signed. Most of all it was a pity the young and very talented soloists who prepared the main parties, many of them after such a failure had left the theater. However, digging up the past and to understand the reasons for the abolition of the former does not make sense now - fortunately, a middle-aged director stoically suffered a stroke of fate. What kind of "Onegin" was needed Mikhailovsky theater, it became clear only after four years.

This time, a masterpiece by Tchaikovsky was obliged to cancel the opera "Life with an Idiot" by Alfred Schnittke, which he had put Andriy Zholdak. Again, strangely, was thinking Mikhailovsky Theatre, announced a year ago when the scandalous opera Schnittke main character - an idiot Vova. But if Zholdak staged pro-life with an idiot, so shocking, "Eugene Onegin" is most likely not have seen ever.

This "Onegin" seen not only operas Petersburg and Moscow, and in the world is hardly someone's wild imagination would have brought someone to such a sharp psychological autopsy ins and outs of the plot. Most cause opus young opera director Basil Barkhatova - baby talk compared with audacity and energy charge Zholdak directorial concept. Fortunately, the new version of "Eugene Onegin" was still not shocking for the sake of shocking, but splashed cold shower unexpected associations and meanings. One of two world-renowned Tchaikovsky immersed in black-and-white space where reality interwoven with thin world subconscious instincts, fears, desires, obsessions.

The main characters as if moved to a different era - whether post-war, according to the contoured dresses sisters, though during the play they appear clothes from the present. For many manners four teenagers - Eugene, Vladimir, Olga and Tanya act in the spirit of modern teenagers. They tormoshat, pushing, grabbing, pulling, laughing at each other. Lenski unceremoniously pack off Larin mother, was in a state of exaltation comic on arrival of young people in their provincial backwater. Nanny tough willed gesture puts Tanya sleep. Tatiana's birthday Onegin danced the twist. Tatiana openly flirts with him. All this keeps the audience in a state of nervous tension and irritability. All in wonder, wide-eyed watching what happens until the final, where the audience will be a surprise in the form of repetition of entry, in which we see the family of Tatiana Gremina with his little daughter on the eve of the New Year.

Four lovers sing and play at the limit of strength and emotions. Tatiana Ryaguzov, sang its namesake, heroically resolved complicated pattern role, keeping the noble appearance, psychologically revealing filled singing. Smart and stylish work was Olga Sophia Feinberg, who showed the wonders of sports training and creates an image of angular animal, afraid of themselves and their instincts. Latvian Janis Apeynis - Onegin was sheer demon facing his and other people's feelings of strength. The youngest debutant Evgeny Akhmedov Lensky, like glasses on Harry Potter, offered hope that the opera world had one more lyric tenor. Artist had really hard time at the moment of death, when he had to lie down on their own in the hours-a coffin, and then stand under a stream of white liquid, Onegin poured on his head.

Carrier nonverbal experiences in the play stands the world of things: pots, jars, washing machine, microwave, whirligig, beads, clock, to turn around the coffin, and a long list of things, characters, causing the complex feelings and meanings. Zholdak uses them, trying to explain the inexplicable, to call black black and white white, but kept slipping into the darkness of the unconscious. Director, for the first time confronted with the opera, not quite aware that everything is written in music, and not necessarily to score stage abundance of things that create noise is not always a necessary counterpoint. That black beads poured as a bad omen, the bang-case clock. Aggressive, but the exigencies of their exciting line design was crafted not play worse symphonic scores that lay before the eyes of the conductor. As befits the score (set design Pormale Monica and Andre Zholdak, light - AJ Vayssbard), all of it was in development. Like the negative, turning into a positive, and vice versa - every thing "shoots" in Chekhov.

Visual part was too much, so head on the play worked incessantly. Was not boring. Heart is with the silent! And no tears - the only reason, or rather, the dream of reason, hell being born. Not even the orchestra, led by conductor Michael Tatarnikov that that evening admired the courage of author reading score by Tchaikovsky. Inflated rates, dynamic extremes, which rushed to the music of "lyrical scenes", opened Tchaikovsky without make-up - like a burst of passion out of control, effectively abandoning the norms of decency. It was felt that this boisterousness largely provoked to life direction: no conductor could only resist the onslaught of hostile environment on the basis of counteractions. Thanks extremals Zholdak we heard on what feats can in extreme conditions conductor Mikhail Tatarnikov.

The performance was controversial, contentious, much of the evil one, but very disturbing. It faced a radical modern direction and lack of experience in the public perception of such theatrical language. Boom disaffected hordes already flew into the goal. It is easiest to say the play hard "no" to our supposedly decent, but, alas, often hypocritical and incurably blind opera. Harder to leave him to live at least to go to the opera not only entertain, but also to think.